The Business Secretary needs to think again. Industry runs on gas. You need lots of gas to make steel, fertiliser, ceramics, cement, bricks, tiles and many other materials and products. In due course there will be ways of using more electricity from renewable sources, but todays factories run on gas. U.K. factories face heavy losses and closure at current gas prices, made higher by the UKs high carbon tax surcharge. He should come up with action to ease the squeeze on industry.
He should also understand that plenty of gas trades at contract prices, not at current spot global market prices. US gas prices are much lower than current U.K. prices thanks to policies that have promoted domestic gas production. Most of the US gas has to be sold to domestic users, delivered by pipe. The US lacks capacity to convert it all to LNG and export it in tankers, so domestic demand is the main determinant of prices.
He also needs to refresh his memory that increasing the supply of something does lower prices if other things stay the same.
The U.K. needs to produce all the gas it can to help Europe cut its dependence on Russian gas. The U.K. should buy no Russian gas itself, and should also stop buying imported LNG from elsewhere as soon as we are producing the gas we need. Delivering it by pipe to ourselves is cheaper and produces much less CO2 than bringing it in on ship after compression.
March 7, 2022
By importing gas and raising our CO2 levels shows this has nothing to do with climate change. I think politicians can’t bear to admit they’ve got it wrong. How can they sit there and watch while industries go to the wall? These are important industries that every country needs. The job losses and loss of tax revenue will be horrendous so God knows how we will support our own people let alone those coming here to escape danger. Everyone I speak to is struggling and not just with energy prices but the rise in food prices too. Something just doesn’t add up John but it won’t bode well at the next election.
March 7, 2022
+1 What are our government up to, because it is clear they do not work in the interests of the UK or its people. Whose interests are they working for and why does Parliament allow it?
I do not believe for one minute that these balls ups are the result of ignorance or lack of intelligence. It is deliberate, but for what purpose?
March 7, 2022
JR,
Where is nut job Johnson getting his £400 million to give away to Ukraine! More tax rises! Does he have a clue that the money is real and it has to be given to the govt by taxpayers for him to piss down the drain!
Any restraint on immigration or is he going to invite the whole world under any excuse he can find and then hide the numbers? Presumably someone in the Foreign Office has told him the history leading to the current events, he might have gleaned some facts when there!
In 2018 at UN conference when Trump warned Germany and Europe of the consequences for buying Russian oil and gas, they laughed at him. He was spot on. What was Johnson or May thinking at the time? They kept buying Russian gas and coal while closing our own sites!
We read in the papers today Johnson ennobled a Russian editor of a paper against the advice of the security services saying they were anti-Russian. Does he still think the Same.
Please tell us JR how much we all have to suffer and how long you will keep this fool as PM?
March 8, 2022
Oh I think he knows what real money is as he tried to get someone else to pay for his wife’s horrific taste in expensive wallpaper until he got caught. He does not seem to equate this with tax money though and every time he goes abroad or entertains foreign politicians here, it always costs millions (mostly hundreds of millions) more. He should be locked down.
March 8, 2022
Boris in particular is working to the policies of his friends in the WEF and UN. He might appear to be a buffoon but behind that face he is a very dangerous man. We have had too many PMs acting in the interest of others rather than the native British population.
March 7, 2022
Universal basic income is the way forward for this govt. They just have not told the public because they will not like it. Already being piloted in certain areas instead of universal credit/welfare. WEF aims underway.
I think we are back to the previous blog either JR does not understand govt policy on energy or the minister has gone rogue. The third option is that JR is trying to provide false hope to keep votes for May.
The govt is levelling down.
Look what it did during lockdown, levelled down on many issues. Education everyone was given a grade no need to work. It does not pay to work or own anything. Illegal immigrants in four star hotels have no living crisis.!
Patel opening more mass immigration today from the Ukraine.
March 7, 2022
The Johnson government, with its mindless addiction to net zero, is a threat to national security. There needs to be a backbench rebellion to remove him from office. His successor needs to be a pragmatist not an eco zealot. I did not expect to see a left dominated German government show a UK conservative government what pragmatism involves when it revised its own energy policies. PS: those who bother to read the IPCC’s WG1 on the science will discover an acknowledgment that CO2 promotes plant growth and has helpful feedback effects; this is not mentioned in the Summary for Policy Makers, along with the fact that solar radiation and volcanic activity are also ignored by the modellers. We are fed a scam.
March 8, 2022
+1
March 7, 2022
Look at Los Angeles.
Since it is not possible to fit a pint into a half pint jug nor is it possible to purposely impoverish people without them becoming poor one can only conclude that LA living is the objective?
AKA tent city in every large U.K. town.
March 7, 2022
Buying a new EV car also causes more CO2 than keeping your old car (as a new EV and battery have to be mined and constructed yet the government encourages and subsidised this. As does flying business, first class or by private jet or helicopters yet Truss, Prince Charles and the government do this. Boris even did it from Blackpool rather than catch a train or car from London.
March 8, 2022
+1
March 7, 2022
Well said.
March 7, 2022
The government are all followers of the Net Zero idea.
Nigel Farage has recently announced a party to campaign against Net Zero.
So it will be an alternative voting option. It probably will not gain seats but it may help to permanently see off the Conservative Party.
That needs to happen to get rid of all the selfish chancer/careerist types they now attract. Some decent backbenchers may go too and there will be chaos before anything fit for purpose emerges in its place.
March 7, 2022
Bunter knows what the priorities are; he took the time to help a Russian oligarch to be enobled back in 2020, because there wasn’t much else going on….
Prosecco and cheese anyone?
March 7, 2022
Do you agree that:
– U.K. should be self-sufficient in energy
– The 5% tax on fuel should be removed
– There should be no subsidies for energy generation, or any other ‘net zero’ policies
March 7, 2022
They get almost everything wrong – the ERM, the EU membership, the EURO, the over regulation of everything, the climate change act, the fracking ban, Blairs moronic wars, importing wood to burn at Drax, a state sector that is spending nearly 50% of GDP & mainly on wasting it…
March 8, 2022
Indeed LL.
March 8, 2022
Electric vehicles too cause more C02 when the manufacture, typical recharging and recycling of them is fully considered. But this too seems to have escaped the government’s experts.
March 7, 2022
We haven’t add all the rises in council tax, prescription charges, NI contributions, emission charges, parking charges at work etc yet. There is nothing to look forward to unless you are wealthy.
March 7, 2022
FUS,
Not for everyone. It is not a problem on universal income. It is only a problem for the prudent, savers and strivers. This group will lose all they worked for.
How many years of socialist Tory govt have kept bank rates deliberately low for the prudent and savers robbing them of what they worked for and how many kept voting for this socialist Marxist outfit? Three elections! All promises and scares based on lies.
March 7, 2022
We keep thinking that.
Maybe they want us to top ourselves and save them the trouble?
March 7, 2022
The attacks on red diesel, the frozen allowances, the increased commuting rail charges or congestion zone/ULEZ charges proposed parking at work charges… Not worth working at all for many people. The extra time is more valuable to many.
March 7, 2022
“prescription charges” Only in England. The Scots/Welsh and N.Irish get theirs paid for with English taxes.
March 7, 2022
+1
March 8, 2022
+1
March 7, 2022
It’s almost as if voting to be poorer was a dumb thing for you to do.
March 7, 2022
Andy. Pray tell us with your superior wisdom who you voted for .
March 8, 2022
Macron perhaps?
March 7, 2022
@Andy
Whilst, God knows, I am against the first past the post voting system, voting for Labour would make you even poorer.
March 8, 2022
It was a Brexit Vote Andy. That’s the ONLY reason Johnson is in the post.
Voting for any other party would have seen Brexit scuppered.
And you know that FULL WELL.
March 7, 2022
That means less spending money to support the economy. Time to shrink the bloated State.
March 7, 2022
Usually April is a month that heralds spring, lighter evenings, warmer days, a mental lift in spirits.
Not this year. It will be another gloomy vision of the future. Dystopia getting ever closer.
We’ve had a pandemic, an alarming fall in economy only added to by EU response to our leaving them.
Green soothsayers agitating for removal of the energy sources that made the world great.
Now we have a new war fueled and directed by a madman who likely will never face a war crimes tribunal, but should. The disaster of violent, shambolic leaders of countries everywhere you look.
March 7, 2022
why held back?
March 7, 2022
censored for being miserable? Most contributors are miserable – why me?
What stopped you Sir John – don’t like ‘an alarming fall in economy’?
March 7, 2022
Fedups
Agree.
We have plenty of gas, it’s under out own feet but the bloody silly government will nor extract it.
We have hundreds of years of our own coal, its under our feet, but the bloody silly government will not extract it.
We have years of our own oil under the sea, but the bloody silly government will not extract it.
We also now have the Mayor of London wanting to enlarge the ULEZ yet again, only months after the latest enlargement, but again you can pollute if you can afford it !
I would not be surprised if they do not put an extra charge on baked beans and sprouts in an attempt to lower emissions, such is the stupidity of present Government thinking.
Good grief we do not need enemies abroad, we have enough of them at home slowly strangling the Nation to death.
For goodness sake STOP and rethink policies through properly.
March 8, 2022
+1
March 7, 2022
Ideology over reality has infected our way of life and your party has become part of the problem not the solution. The Tory party has become an extension of the Socialist client State and they don’t give a toss if we know it or not
March 7, 2022
Whether it be Socialism or Capitalism, if there is coil to be made by them, their backers or friends they will back it.
March 7, 2022
It’s nonesense to say fracking won’t make gas cheaper.
The gas belongs to the government as they own all the mineral rights.
The licence agreement could stipulate a fixed price for domestic gas. Of course they’d drill as long as they could make a decent profit.
Anyway Farage is back on the scene to crack a few skulls.
Vote power not poverty is a good tag line.
Just who is this clown telling Cuadrilla to concrete the weeks.
March 7, 2022
Last week was interesting regarding the absolute uselessness of wind power. Output varied between 3gw and 11gw. Or 8% and 35%.
Today with a rude of high pressure over the UK it’s providing 12,%. What sort of stupid energy policy is this when 100% thermal backup is required.
March 7, 2022
Its called the Boris green revolution
March 7, 2022
Ian Wragg : “What sort of stupid energy policy is this when 100% thermal backup is required.”
If you read the Net Zero Strategy and watch the HoL Industry & Regulator’s Committee meetings on the subject of “Ofgem and Net Zero” you will see that the Net Zero plan is for us to accept intermittent electrical power and for “demand to match supply” instead of the current one of “supply matching demand”.
This will be achieved through what is described by Net Zero advocates as “volatile pricing” and will inevitably in addition cause rolling blackouts.
We will all be fitted with smart meters.
March 8, 2022
Along with barcodes, smart meters will soon be mandatory
March 7, 2022
Dom Correct.
The govt could mine for coal tomorrow, frack or issue licenses for gas. It CHOOSES not to. It prefers to impoverish its people, transfer jobs and industry.
JR knows this to be the case. He told us previously the argument was lost on climate change so I am unclear of the purpose of his letter after accepting defeat? Perhaps I misunderstood him?
March 7, 2022
Agree…..either this government isn’t listening or it doesn’t care
March 7, 2022
Well said, DOM. It has been this way since the election of Major in 1992. Things would be different if Sir John (then Mr Redwood) had defeated Major subsequent to the ERM debacle.
March 7, 2022
+10
March 7, 2022
Good morning.
Hell hath no fury like a woman sconed.
And boy didn’t dear Theresa take her beasting form the electorate on two occasions and her eventual ousting badly. She has left us with a minefield of poisoned pills, such as the amendment to the Climate Change Act. An act that, despite what our kind host urges the Business Secretary to do, he cannot because that piece of legislation and s0me 500 MP’s will not let him.
Never fear, for I have a solution ! Why don’t we, at the first opportunity, vote in MP’s that will change the legislation ? Seriously though, I am afraid our kind host is barking up the wrong tree. If he cannot convince the Energy Secretary, the government, or some 500 of his fellow MP’s then there is only one place to go. Join a cross party movement dedicated to removing the CCA, VAT on bills, removal of green taxes on energy and green products.
But will he do it ?
March 7, 2022
+many
Agree!
We are so bound up in various international agreements that we follow all this lunacy without question.
But can’t they just unsign? Like Trump did with the Paris thing? If they actually wanted to?
As to the other proposal …I think maybe a politician would need to be under 30 to consider such a course of action. It is very, very cold and dark in the wilderness. And politics now is VICIOUS!
And are there any young unwoke MPs coming along?
NF is seeking a referendum on greencrap.
March 8, 2022
I worry about the result of a referendum with so many having been indoctrinated with the “greencrap”. Re-education is needed.
March 7, 2022
No of course not.
Mark, can you remember Pickles promising to sort out bin collections back to once a week? It is now a three week collection! It sums up 12 years in office for me that community charge not frozen as promised but year on year inflation busting hikes and a basic service not delivered.
Education is now appalling. So grades given. For years under Tories we have University students accepted on potential rather than actual grades to “level up”. Marxism indoctrinated in children of tender years.
JRs party gave councils extra tens of billions last year and somehow the govt accepts community charge will make a huge jump, why? Council staff still lazing about at home.
March 7, 2022
Party loyalty?
A ridiculous notion especially when said party isn’t anything like the party you shared basic views and principles with.
That’s as ridiculous as those that vote for a party because they always have and/or their parents and grandparents did so. Despite the fact that they will then go into a seething rage over everything that party has done or is doing.
March 7, 2022
There are people here who will vote for the party regardless. You just have to read what they say to know who they are.
March 7, 2022
Sir.John is defacto an Independent MP
March 7, 2022
Please could you spell out that amendment to the Climate Change Act or point me to the place in the act?
March 7, 2022
I would but SJT does not allow me to post links.
March 8, 2022
GB, could that be ‘The Climate Change Act 2008 (2050 Target Amendment) Order 2019 No 1056’
You can find it from legislation.gov.uk. It was passed as a Statutory Instrument.
March 7, 2022
Yeah, that GBBO can be unwatchable at times.
March 7, 2022
Mark B, I do agree with your conclusions and I am mystified as to why it makes sense to be a member of the party with the intransigent boneheads of the PM and the Business Secy. dead set against the necessary common sense required.
Constructive argument is totally ineffectual with the current leadership of inadequates.
Theresa was not a singular example of what we didn’t need and didn’t vote for.
March 7, 2022
“We need more gas”
This Government does not sufficiently care about the plight of its people.
Do not forget ….. not many of us are highly paid employees (or former employees) of the state.
March 7, 2022
Past and present government’s have had little care for the people of this country.
If they had taken care of home first, perhaps we wouldn’t be in quite the mess we are.
Career politicians.
Politicians with only money on their minds but who have no idea of the value of anything.
Politicians who want to be seen prancing around on the world stage more than they want to keep house at home.
March 7, 2022
And the Rough storage facility should be reopened asap.
March 7, 2022
And how do you propose to compel its private owners to do that?
March 8, 2022
Simply a matter of telling them that if they want to be in the business, they must provide the infrastructre needed. If they don’t want to do that they can hand their licences back, just like the railways.
March 8, 2022
And how long do you think that it would take to set up a national enterprise to do what is required when they say “fine” then?
March 8, 2022
If a big profit is possible then they will stay.
Have you ever worked in a commercial enterprise NHL?
March 7, 2022
Understatement of the year, its been obvious for years the country was heading in the wrong direction of all the sermons coming from the High Temple of Westminster and its green crap disciples and converts.
Too much gas from them and no action.
The saddest thing is they still think their right and their arrogance is what binds them together. They dare not admit they have got it so wrong as the country destroys itself.
It is a religion akin to a disease or addiction.
March 7, 2022
They are climate change zealots, and like all zealots no price paid is too much to show they are true believers.
March 7, 2022
Agreed.
March 7, 2022
Home produced gas should be ring fenced for domestic, industrial, commercial use not power generation.
All the time the rest of the world are heavily reliant on coal for power generation why should we self destruct?
Do they know something we don’t?
We keep taking the green fix but it’s killing us. Why does our government keep dishing out the wrong medicine. Its happening in everything they get involved with. Dingy Invaders, policing, NHS, energy, infrastructure, housing, taxation, welfare all they are good at is banging their gums together with endless talk, empty and broken promises.
March 7, 2022
The corollary of not using gas for power generation is that we have to go back to using nuclear and coal much as in 1984, and not adding to intermittents like wind and solar that need gas to balance them, and which crowd out the amount of nuclear capacity we can use without massive curtailment. We have to have something that is flexible to meet diurnal changes in demand. Of course, we have trashed almost all our coal capacity.
March 7, 2022
Surely they can’t ALL be total idiots?
It was always said that their actions ( like Partygate) were not hypocrisy but that they have an agenda.
This must be the same …not idiots but people on a mission…the agenda is to DEINDUSTRIALISE us pdq!
And what with plagues and wars and “tolerated” protests …they are getting there!
March 7, 2022
@Everhopeful +99
Idiots yes, but with an agenda — Do they really know what they are throwing away?
March 7, 2022
Who do you think selects parliamentary candidates for the Tory party and funds them? Are they patriotic English people? Time to look behind the curtain if you want to understand. Why do they do it? Think of the fable of the frog and the scorpion.
March 7, 2022
You waste your understandable anger on me.
I have been looking behind the curtain for a very long time.
It would be great if others could do so too. They need to ask themselves the questions I pose maybe?
However, haven’t you noticed…a good many people won’t listen!
The fable is also very familiar to me….
March 7, 2022
I’m not angry with you at all.
March 7, 2022
How much of this green nonsense can we take, for over three decades now we’ve been reducing car emissions, insolating our homes, almost completely stopped coal burning, banned plastic bags, introduced environmental and climate change risk assessments on every function of our lives, massively taxed fossil fuels and levies on energy consumption, created clean air zones with extra charges on the working class……will it never end, does anyone know the net-zero success criteria, or does it go on forever
March 7, 2022
+many
Excellent point.
March 7, 2022
Glen. What’s the betting that even after we’ve all suffered at the hands of the green religion maniacs nothing with the climate changes? You cannot control nature. Obviously our egotistical politicians think they are God but we’ve got news for them. They’re dummies.
March 8, 2022
…with an Agenda.
March 7, 2022
Should I take it then that you deplore the decision to force a concreting of the wells for viable onshore gas reserves? I do. The government must stop hiding behind the skirts of an unelected regulator and do the right thing. If emergency legislation is needed to curb this stupidity then the government has the time in hand to effect it.
March 7, 2022
We need fracking too
March 7, 2022
+10000000000000
March 7, 2022
Hear hear!
Kwarteng needs to be reminded that it is not just cheaper gas we need .It is security and continuity of supply
The economic benefits to U.K PLC of North Sea extraction , Fracking and mining are enormous
Get on with it
March 7, 2022
David. Yes, yes and yes.
March 7, 2022
+1111111111111111
March 7, 2022
At the very first hint of war, plague and famine, Johnson ( were he genuinely concerned) should have put in train the rejected proposals for new coal mine(s) and fracking.
As far as I know however, the govt clings obdurately to its assumed terror of energy.
And that speaks volumes!
And where are the easily affordable replacements for landlines, plastic, petrol cars, gas boilers etc.
Yes, I know there are some but at this point they should all be rolling off the production lines ( HA!) like lead soldiers!!
March 7, 2022
The Business Secretary doesn’t appear to be the right person in the right job at the right time. There are only so many excuses you can make for a refusal to do what is so obviously the right and essential thing to protect British business, secure energy supply and keep the lights on ….. and this one is right out of excuses.
So it’s deliberate. The Business Secretary is deliberately making us energy insecure and ramping up the price of energy in the UK.
Now why would he do that? Perhaps we should ask Klaus Schwab?
Meanwhile Richard Tice and Nigel Farage have started a new Referendum campaign “Vote Power Not Poverty UK” to demand a Referendum and challenge the legacy parties in Westminster who, once again, have adopted a CONsensus, to deny the British people any say in “our” energy policy. I’ve signed up; I suggest anyone who cares about this issue does as well because it’s blindingly obvious that this Government is prepared to see thousands of households driven into fuel poverty rather than change policy.
March 7, 2022
Yes, emergency measures for war mean that other objectives – very regrettably – may have to be down-prioritised for a while.
Sir John is right to emphasise gas, over coal, with half the CO2 per unit of energy.
March 7, 2022
You actually expect energy companies to spend hundreds of millions a year exploring and then providing us energy, then when you shout stop go away and sit somewhere waiting until your next acceptable emergency ?
Hilarious.
March 8, 2022
No.
That is just one of the many problems of privatisation and leaving things to the global market.
March 8, 2022
No
It’s a problem that no company will spend years planning, raising funds, employing people, training people, buying plant and equipment when as you say you will require them in a short time you to close them down.
March 7, 2022
We need less gas.
We need more insulation, more wind turbines, more solar panels, more heat pump, more batteries.
We also need more politicians who stick with their manifesto commitments. Conservatives were elected promising net zero by 2050 – which means getting serious about decarbonising now.
March 7, 2022
They are.
March 7, 2022
Andy. You are even at odds with NLH in your thinking.
Times have changed dramatically because of your EU trying to expand into Ukraine and – doubtless – on to the Urals, as Remainer Cameron had once hoped.
None of the things you propose are ready this instant. Not anywhere near it.
The energy shock is unsustainable if it continues. That is unsustainable for what we call civilisation to continue.
March 8, 2022
The Common European Home from the Atlantic to the Urals was Gorbachev’s vision.
Cameron merely quoted him.
It all the hours that Macron has spoken to Putin, his grievances do not appear to relate to the European Union.
March 7, 2022
There is no viable plan to store solar and wind energy for use when the sun does not shine. Building more of it is correctly stupid buy, of course, you support it. Which proves the point.
March 7, 2022
We’ve been insulating homes since the 1970s, we’ve had wind-turbines and solar panels since the 1990s….its never enough ….and more batteries mean more child labour in Africa and forced labour in China
March 7, 2022
Lets decarbonize. after we have the renewables at scale, in place at sufficient level +200GW with storage.
The gas/coal plants will be a transition fuel until the end of the useful lives dictated by the demand/supply & technology needs.
Instead they are reducing supply, increasing dependence on the EU and deindustrialising the EU to force it back into the EU.
The uniparty does not care if you vote the LibLabcon out or in. Or if you vote Yes/No in a referendum.
Ukraine should take the neutrality offered by Russia and by extension protection from the EU and run. Being thankful it remains outside of the EU clutches.
March 8, 2022
You do know the economic cost of mining all that Lithium, Cobalt and Neodymium for the batteries?
Or perhaps not.
They were ACTUALLY elected on the Brexit issue. Other things may have been in the manifesto, but…… priorities change. And this is one of them.
March 8, 2022
+1. It was reckoned some years ago that the cost of mining, production and disposal of a lithium car battery exceeded the lifetime cost of a conventional car by a significant factor.
March 8, 2022
….and the human cost of mining in Africa & China
March 7, 2022
All obviously true. But a very silly and bombastic statement emerged from this business department in response to calls for fracking to be given another go – all about how renewables are the answer. Do the civil servants who draft this drivel have any clue of the actual numbers- how much energy comes from renewables etc and what a reasonable prognosis for the coming years looks like? Ministers and most Conservatives MPs need to wake up to the massive electoral backlash we will see once the public realise they cannot afford to heat their homes and prices start to go through the roof.
Anyway I see Nigel farage is back with a campaign for a referendum on net zero. That should concentrate minds.
March 7, 2022
One thing we do need more of is Ukrainian refugees.
Poland has welcomed one million people in just over a week. The children arriving are given sweets and teddy bears. The Poles have been beyond generous – a generosity replicated across the EU and beyond into countries like Moldova.
Here Ukrainians seeking asylum are not greeted with sweets and teddy bears. They are greeted with pointless bureaucracy and a government which would not be less welcoming if it stuck two fingers up at them.
The British people have raised £100m in 4 days to help those fleeing Russian bombs. We mostly are disgusted at the callousness of this Brexit government. Appalling.
March 8, 2022
Poland has disappeared from the map before now thanks to Russia.
They understand.
March 7, 2022
His failures gave directly led to my gas price increasing 50%, this country losing its energy security and indirect appeasement of Putin.
He should be fired forthwith no doubt to be awarded a knighthood like Williamson, the worst Education Secretary in history and sacked twice, a political decision from No 10 slid out when we were distracted by other news and branded ‘could be seen as dishonest and corrupt’ by a No 10 spokesperson.
The Times has got it spot on. It’s about his personal relationship with Boris. Does he know ‘something’?
In any event it debases our honours system. No surprise with Boris in charge.
March 7, 2022
“The U.K. needs to produce all the gas it can to help Europe cut its dependence on Russian gas”
Why should we deplete our reserves to help out mainland governments that treated us like crap?
Let them buy any of our surplus renewables at a premium, but we should not, yet again pauper, ourselves for those ungrateful, vindictive wretches.
March 7, 2022
Dixie. Never a truer word spoken. I feel the same . We get no favours from them. They treat us like dirt.
March 7, 2022
“He also needs to refresh his memory that increasing the supply of something does lower prices if other things stay the same.” – ! Are we to believe he is capable of doing that?
March 7, 2022
Some journalists get the enviable opportunity of questioning the prime minister at length and reportedly a BBC interviewer asked him 17 times about Partygate – that’s akin to bowling underarm at a Test Match.
Western nations are currently waging what is in effect a de facto war against Russia through, mostly, Ukrainian men. Many of the same nations, including ourselves, are buying gas, oil, and coal from Russia thus providing it with huge amounts of money enabling it to wage this war despite the fact that we and some of the other nations have copious amounts of these products under our feet but refuse to use them.
Why doesn’t a journalist ask the PM about the logic of this?
March 7, 2022
As a PS, BBC journalists seem to be obsessed about refugees which is currently the subject of an interview on BBC radio 4 Today with a minister despite the fact that according to Gridwatch our electricity is currently being generated by 44% gas and 4% coal. I might add that quite rightly the interviewer is also asking about Russian oligarchs.
March 8, 2022
Thet do what they’re paid to do, Miami. As you might have noticed during the media assault on Johnson two years ago, forcing him into a lockdown.
March 7, 2022
Net-Zero rules – they cannot have anything affecting this goal, no matter how irrational it is.
It is well worth pushing all the ‘buttons’ like Ukraine to try to get them to act in a reasonable manner, but it will still be an uphill battle to get them to use what we have, and then it will only be limited if they do anything.
Our over-large government state has reached the point where it doesn’t need agreement from the masses any more – with all major parties thinking alike there is no way to censor a run-a-way regime that has gone off the rails.
This is how democracy is failing us, and we badly need something better, more representative of real morals and hope for the future. That won’t happen with a system heaped in corruption and fairy tales.
March 7, 2022
No gas but the politicians have to look good and righteous where emissions are involved. Just dont bleat come the next election.
March 7, 2022
North Sea oil was suppose to provide energy and fuel as cheap as Saudi, Morecombe gas fields was suppose to make domestic energy almost free, while fracking as going to make it even cheaper….but our governments interventions including selling off our resources on the international markets and opting for wind-turbines, renewables and net-zero, with huge taxes & levies….its as though our governments are actively working against the people
March 8, 2022
The real danger to mankind is not CO2 but the global emissions of righteousness from politicians.
March 7, 2022
Wouldn’t those Ukraine genuine refugees have more luck getting into the UK if they bought a dinghy? Let’s face it, those that pay to get here abd are economic immigrants get escorted into the UK but genuine refugees are being held up. We sent planes out to Afghanistan to bring people over so surely it’s not beyond us to help these refugees particularly if they have family here who are willing to help. The situation in Ukraine is beyond dire and I am fed up paying for people who shouldn’t be here at the expense of those in real need.
March 7, 2022
Given the number of Europeans that have come here in the past decade or more, we’ve already done our bit by freeing up vacancies for the Ukrainians to move into.
Plus, their president is saying he wants EU membership, so he is obviously looking to them for help. Perhaps he should consider that EU membership means putting up trade barriers with the UK which he will have no control over.
Since when is the EU going to guarantee Ukraine’s safety?
March 8, 2022
Guarantee it with what, Dave? Europe doesn’t have an army.
Or then again perhaps it does: ours. Under the defence agreement with the EU quietly kept in place after Brexit.
March 7, 2022
Yes, Sir John. You know it. We, your audience know it (most of us). Probably your fellow MPs know it. So why cannot you and your fellow MPs get it done? If, as Mark B notes, the Climate Change Act is the problem, abolish it. Or, as Everhopeful notes, is there really a government policy to de-industrialise us, to make us and keep us dependent upon other nations? If not, please may we have the appropriate positive action from our government. Now would be nice.
March 7, 2022
The CCA sets out the time table and the levels of CO2 we must emit. This means :
a) Deindustrialisation. It does not matter if the steel the cars we bought were made from an even dirtier coal, so long as the cares and the steel was not made here.
b) Buying fuel from foreign lands rather than use our own. Because we are not extracting the coal, gas and oil to burn we and buy it instead we can so that it does not count as our CO2. Madness ! And we then deforest other countries and import at great expense wood chips to burn, producing more CO2 as wood in not as efficient as coal.
March 7, 2022
What have I learned from your blogs these days “Dear Sir john Redwood”?
I’ve learned many contributors moan and gripe
Some like Andy write a load of tripe
Most want Boris to be replaced
I’d vote Ben Wallace to take his place
That’s what I’ve learned from your blogs these days “Dear Sir John Redwood”.
March 7, 2022
++🤗
March 7, 2022
When the Government should be doing everything in its power to alleviate the energy crisis by removing the Climate Change Act and getting companies to tap any and all resources we have, oil, gas, coal, fracking, they aren’t , instead we get Johnson prattling about the need to go further with his Green nuttery. By the time reality dawns on them it will be too dammed late, well it already is, for rather than banning fracking for Johnson’s green religion look where we would be if we had pursued it! Energy secure and with a massive market for our gas, and rather than having to jack up taxes to extortionate levels they wouldn’t know what to do with the revenue pouring in. It will be seen as a very costly decision to ban fracking.
March 7, 2022
Yet you all support the first past the post voting system which produces this situation. You all vote Tory because, no matter how bad they are, they are not as bad as Labour. Right?
If people’s votes actually counted, I think that 40% of people, at least, would vote for a small state, low immigration party that believes in self sufficiency in food, energy and manufactured goods.
But because most people’s votes don’t count under first past the post, you end up with autocracy disguised by the veneer of democracy.
March 7, 2022
Mike
Not ALL ! I believe in Direct Democracy.
Thanks.
March 8, 2022
And what do you do, Mark_B, to advance ‘Direct Democracy’ apart from writing comments here? Have you been pushing for a Swiss system of calling referendum? Or for the Recall of MPs Act (2015)? Or even possibly a change to FPTP?
See politics.co.uk ‘Direct democracy: a different way of thinking’, 25/10/2021.
The biggest obstacle in the way is the present clutch of MPs: the chair of the APPG on ‘deliberative democracy’ concluded that ‘Such a system can only work in a proportional democracy. Without it DD will be really very difficult’.
As a Swiss citizen in the UK said: ‘The problem is that politicians don’t really want it to work. Why would they introduce a thing that would limit their powers?’
March 7, 2022
Quite right Mike and it’s a disgrace. I’m not backing down this time though. I’m voting Reform.
March 8, 2022
I suppose that smashing what’s left of civic society is “reform” of a kind, yes.
March 7, 2022
+1. It was ever thus. Tories and Labour campaigned vigorously against PR last time we had a vote on it. Now both parties have similar policies they’d be even more against an upstart being given the chance to rock their boat.
March 7, 2022
You might consider that the PR system in Germany has left them perilously dependent on Russian energy supply and with Greens calling the shots in government.
March 8, 2022
Apart from the fact that the German system is not full PR (as wrongly understood in the UK), but a mixed system in which each elector has two votes:
– the first one is to vote in the members in the 299 constituencies, they are elected by single majority (FPTP-type) by the electors in each constituency with each candidate usually strongly representative of that constituency (the local branch of the AfD, CDU/CSU, Gruenen, SPD, …);
– the second vote is to vote for a party (for which another list of candidates is available, usually at the whole country level).
If the representation of each party is the same in both votes, the second vote will deliver another 299 Bundestag members for a total of 598.
But it rarely happens that the first and second votes give the same proportions to each party. In which case the proportions in the first vote are used to add up additional MPs to the Chamber taken from those second lists of candidates for each party.
That’s the German Personalised Proportional Representation.
It is more complex than the British system, but it does not seem to work much worse than the system here.
As for the German voting system being responsible for the present dependence on Russian gas supply, I would love to see a proper demonstration why it is so.
Would I say that the present energy problems in the UK are linked to FPTP? No, they are more likely linked to both politicians’ and energy companies’ decisions over these last ten-twenty years. Is the French reliance on nuclear energy these last forty years linked to the two-round presidential then legislative election system?
March 7, 2022
Rolls Royce…
March 7, 2022
Well you have covered most gas requirements short of my efforts at the hob. I will read you again but at the moment I think you got through your submission without mentioning the word fracking.
The gas we use in the UK needs to come from our own sources, maritime and on land. When that is a reality any surplus can be sold to european users. What we use needs to arrive at user outlets at cost plus a reasonable profit. Not at current world prices.
Fossil based gas is only an interim product that should be replaced by Hydrogen produced by electrolysis. The electricity can come from windmills for such a process. Not only should Hydrogen be the future industrial and domestic gas , but it should also be the prime fuel for industrial and domestic transport.
If fossil gas can hold the fort until the arrival of Hydrogen, it can do the same for electricity production until we have Small Modular Reactors covering our needs.
In the meantime we should support Fusion Energy developement to move it from 5 seconds to constant.
Getting back to today, we should be mining our own coal for current steel production and electricity needs. For the populations financial immediate needs the 20% green levy and the 5% VAT levy should go. Whether government has realised it or not, these levies stand in the way of its political future. There are much less painful ways of going green, and the lesson to be learnt here is that you need public consent not the current government imposition.
March 7, 2022
Kwasi Karteng is a security risk. His devotion to green energy shibboleths prevent him from taking practical steps to promote secure energy supplies. This government cannot see ahead.
March 7, 2022
Not only Kwasi Karteng but also Alok Sharma the crybaby President of COP 26
March 7, 2022
Sir John
Your government has instructed that the Lancashire Bowland Shale gas wells be sealed with concrete. Are they working for Vladimir Putin?
Roger
March 7, 2022
Liquefying natural gas for export by sea takes loads of energy, it’s only really feasible at scale in places where energy is very cheap like Qatar. Hence there is no “global” gas price, unlike oil. Extra gas production in UK could easily be reserved for UK use hence reducing our dependence on imports and freeing up more gas for places like Germany.
March 7, 2022
There is blatant profiteering going on by the oil companies. I’ve heard of prices being changed various times during the day, ‘based on demand’.
How is this allowed to happen? It is high time that the oil companies were stopped in their tracks, with their long running practice of fleecing the public.
The Government needs to act now.
Prices are quick enough to go up, however always slow in coming down in price.
Why should we the taxpayer fund their ‘losses’ and ‘right offs’, when they treat us with utter contempt.
It really isn’t on, especially when they still continue to make billions in profit.
March 12, 2022
‘based on demand’, yes, based on supply and demand that can evolve hugely during a day due to ‘world events’. The oil companies will sell to the best offer, LPG-carrying ships will be rerouted following events: isn’t it what a working market should be doing?
March 7, 2022
I read the Business Secretary’s recent article in a national newspaper. Minds, like parachutes, work best when they are open. His is not so we will get nowhere until he is replaced by someone with a brain. A refusal to even consider fracking & a complete misunderstanding of how markets work does not inspire confidence in the Minister! Even worse is our Army chief & leader of our intelligent services ordering our soldiers & spies to take a day to consider their white privilege!!!!
Do you think the Russian army & spies are doing that? Ukraine should be a real wake up call to get real, become self sufficient in energy, as close as possible to that in food, & to get rid of all the woke nonsense throughout government and industry. Let’s have some action instead of waffle!
March 7, 2022
Your persistence on this issue is convincing ordinary people of the insanity of the UK’s self inflicted embargo on domestic gas production. Please keep it up.
The weak point of the green lobby is that this policy is generating massive excess CO2 emissions, which are not accounted for in our warped emissions targets.
March 7, 2022
It doesn’t help when the BBC & SKY are constantly airing stories about climate change without any balance or counter argument
March 8, 2022
You can shout, wail, and stamp your feet as much as you like, but the Earth is not flat and never will be.
Nor will respectable broadcasters embarrass themselves by presenting people like you as if they have a reasoned case.
March 8, 2022
Trying to reduce those that just want a debate on the costs of net zero and a debate between the relative costs of zero carbon and the costs involved mitigating climate impacts, with a few people who believe the Earth is flat is a very silly conflation.
As bill would say, you can do much better.
March 7, 2022
Once a target is set: net zero in this case, then those given the job of meeting that target will do everything they can to meet that target.
Crucially, importing gas, wood pellets for Drax and LNG doesn’t count as our CO2 emissions.
So it’s a “good thing”to import more and create less of our own fuels.
I totally agree with what you have said in your article today Sir John.
March 7, 2022
Absolute ‘Net-Zero’ as a concept is quite insane…have the lizards really taken over
March 7, 2022
“The Business Secretary needs to think again”
No, the Business Secretary needs to resign if he has so little understanding of the role he’s in.
March 7, 2022
Off topic, a special gift for young Andy:
https://www.cityam.com/brexit-impact-minimal-as-london-lost-only-7500-jobs-due-to-uks-departure-says-eu-born-city-mayor/
“Brexit impact minimal as London lost only 7,500 jobs due to UK’s departure, says EU-born City mayor”
March 7, 2022
You are posting as if ‘only 7500 jobs lost’ is good news.
Oh, that’s right. You’re retired. You don’t have an actual job.
March 8, 2022
It’s hardly any news, as even the passionately pro-EU Irish Times concedes:
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/city-of-london-has-lost-just-7-500-jobs-due-to-brexit-irish-born-mayor-says-1.4818750
“At the height of the Brexit negotiations, it was predicted that London’s financial hub could lose up to 80,000 jobs as firms reconfigured their operations and relocated staff outside the UK to accommodate Britain’s new trading status.
Approximately 500,000-550,000 people are employed in the City of London.
“A certain number of jobs have moved out of London. We think it’s a very small number, in the region of 7,500,” Mr Keaveny said, while noting there has also been Brexit jobs coming the other way with firms moving into London.
“We’ve also seen tens of thousands of jobs being created on the fintech side of the City which has made any job losses or job relocations on the Brexit side relatively insignificant in the overall scheme of things,” he said.”
So the actual job losses have been about one tenth of those predicted by EU fanatics like you, and an order of magnitude even smaller compared to the numbers employed, and partly compensated by jobs moving in the other direction. In other words, all a load of fuss about nothing on this as on other issues.
March 8, 2022
Over 200,000 was your remainers prediction.
March 8, 2022
Then there are all the other jobs that those 7,500 payed people supported, and so on.
It takes a certain type…
March 8, 2022
You, young andy and all the remainer Project Fear blob were still wrong by a huge margin.
And how many of the jobs lost over the last 4 years were due to the effects of Covid and the usual push for efficiency?
March 9, 2022
… to have no understanding of scale, no sense of perspective.
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2019/09/23/flexible-working-and-decent-working-terms-and-conditions/#comment-1057672
“I only have to look up my comment from January filed as:
“Andy needs to get a sense of perspective”
in reply to his similarly facile comment starting:
“Nice spin. Unemployment went up by 8,000.
8,000 people facing problems paying for their homes and food because of Tory Brexit … ”
Etc.
March 7, 2022
Here we go again, same old matter of dodging the issue. Of course we need more gas but to start with why not head the piece ‘more of our own gas’.
And why criticise the poor old minister, however useless he is. He’s is only following the orders of the green fanatic Boris and his wife Carrie.
Addressing the minister is the correct approach and of course our generous host dare not do anything that breaks the rules, but the problem lies with Boris who Sir John dare not challenge and the minister is not likely to either.
It doesn’t matter how mad the party leader is he is untouchable. The party is more important than the country.
March 7, 2022
I’m sure that many voters are somewhat concerned about climate change but they will be absolutely devastated when their energy (and other) bills start going through the roof. I watched Kwasi Kwarteng in TV yesterday – and if he (and Boris/Sunak) think that this line about ‘more renewables’ is going to hold water for very long – then they are going to get a complete roasting at the ballot box.
Whether Fracking and North Sea gas can make any practical difference in the short term (or not) is irrelevant. This government still needs to be seen to be doing everything in their power to mitigate the impact of their complete lack of any sensible energy policy in the light of the Russian sanctions. We are now effectively in a ‘Wartime’ economic & energy emergency (that started with Covid) and people in Government (e.g. both politicians and civil servants) need to start thinking in those terms and fast!
Putin has made a huge misjudgement & dug a large black hole for himself and the Russian people – and he’s still digging! Is Boris really so stupid, as to do the same with his green/eco policies and other stupidity such as the NI increases? If so, then the likes of Nigel Farage (& Co) will make mincemeat of them with the voting public over the coming weeks & months…
So I agree with you Sir John but can your Party find it’s way back to its conservative (small ‘c’) roots and get back to some kind of economic sanity?
March 7, 2022
We need a Conservative government. Instead we have a social-democratic/green government led by a liar.
March 7, 2022
Too True
March 8, 2022
you make it seem so easy. Miracles take a little longer.
March 7, 2022
Why is it that almost all of us contributing here can see the problem and the solution, but ministers can’t or won’t deal with it ?
Do they know something we don’t ?
Are they so obsessed with Climate Change that they won’t do anything ?
Or are they so hamstrung by a Civil Service that won’t act in the best interest of our citizens ?
Surely our host must know the real reason for failing to act ??
March 7, 2022
ChrisS
Good questions.
It is a whole manner of things. Ignorance. Indifference. Personal ambition (ie don’t rock the boat and you will be rewarded with a government job). Personal / financial interest, either for one’s family members and / or backers. Ideology. Some actually believe the sky will fall in.
It is not there motives that we should trouble ourselves with, but what would motivate them to change their respective minds ? One sure way is a real threat of losing their Seat in the HoC.
March 8, 2022
We must be punished for abolishing slavery, the industrial revolution, empire, exiting the EU and pulling French asses out of the fire in two world wars (after previously crushing their dreams of European empire, twice).
March 8, 2022
I think you are missing the simple word ‘incompetent?’
March 7, 2022
Looking forward to voting Reform in the May local elections. I’ve given up on the Tories, they’re not conservatives.
March 7, 2022
E A,
Agreed.
March 7, 2022
0.04% of the atmosphere is CO2.
97% of that 0.04 is natural.
Trashing your economy to try and affect 3% of 0.04% is lunacy.
March 7, 2022
No, only about 66% of that is natural.
That is the problem.
For comparison, there is only ~ one ten-thousandth of that amount of ozone in the ozone layer, but without that we’d have very serious problems.
March 7, 2022
Plus, substituting imported oil, gas and coal for domestic resources is carbon neutral.
March 7, 2022
Lunacy is what Con/Lab/Lib do. They are ALL useless fools.
March 7, 2022
Agree
March 7, 2022
It is the same as trashing your economy for the sake of 18,000 deaths, irrespective that said trashing will result in even more deaths due to preventable conditions go undiagnosed due to lockdown.
March 8, 2022
It’s ten times that number, but you’d be willing to trash literally everything if 18,000 had been killed by foreigners and not by a virus.
Wouldn’t you?
March 7, 2022
And don’t forget the UK is responsible for only 1% of global emissions.
March 8, 2022
not even as much as that.
March 7, 2022
The Business Secretary does not think.
We need a new Business Secretary. Perhaps a new government.
March 7, 2022
Mark. Perhaps we need a new government???? You bet we do.
March 7, 2022
There’s no perhaps about it.
March 7, 2022
The problem is NOT with the Business Secretary. It is with 500 MP’s and a PM on a mission to save the world.
March 7, 2022
Mr Kwarteng is a leader among those 500. He and they have lost contact with common sense. Get rid of the leaders, and the sheep may follow.
March 7, 2022
Save the world for China & India at the cost of the UK
March 7, 2022
I read that the Government intends to proceed with the OGA’s (Oil and Gas Authority’s) order to concrete over the UK’s only two shale gas wells by March 15th.
This destruction of an asset, to prevent these wells ever being used, is vandalism.
To make the issue even worse, the instruction to destroy this asset comes from an UNELECTED quango, the OGA.
If the Government/BEIS wants to order the destruction of such an asset, especially in the light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, then it should put such a decision to a free vote in Parliament, so the decision is subject to some form of democracy.
Unlike the way decisions are made in Russia and China.
March 7, 2022
JR: “We need more gas”
Can’t we just lay a new pipeline from SW1?
Should be enought hot air to supply the whole country.
March 7, 2022
Fun fact !
The Palace of Westminster was built on the site of an old gas works.
March 7, 2022
This Conservative government will bear the brunt of this government policies come May’s local elections , and finally finished off come the next election.
I voted for Boris with mixed feelings about doing so,what a fool I was.
March 7, 2022
You are not a fool. Only a fool would do the same things twice and you have already said that you do not intend to make the same mistake twice.
March 8, 2022
those mixed feelings could be likened to a feeling ‘in your water’.
A ‘trust him, or risk being made a monkey from it’ – – sadly millions of us regret we are now dragging our arms along on the ground…
March 7, 2022
Last week I got the bad news about my increased gas supply bills, today I got the same from my electricity supplier that my bill is to double….but it doesn’t explain why my standing charge is going up from 28.04 pence per day to 53.51 pence per day ?
March 7, 2022
Glen
I noticed that my standing charge is going up. I think it has to do with increased salaries and costs of maintenance etc. Although, if there are extra large dividends I want to see the government impose a Windfall tax / rebate.
March 7, 2022
Stagflationary crash.
They are expecting demand or supplies or both to crater. They still need to make profits hence you will pay more or the same regardless of your useage. Its all a rigged market Top to bottom. The ‘WEF/NWO’ curtain is falling away, for all to see.
March 8, 2022
Aye. I thought that. It doesn’t cost them ant extra to actually supply the gas !
Let me think…. which word am I looking for …. um…er…. oh yes, that’s it! “PROFITEERING”.
March 8, 2022
They sort of hope you won’t notice ! Shows you the sort of idiot running these rip off energy supply organisations.
March 7, 2022
I am struggling to see why you are moderating my moderate comments.
March 7, 2022
Because it is your turn on the naughty step, and to keep me company 😉
March 8, 2022
me too , but I hope it is merely Sir John being really busy, or even depressed such that we get passed over in a nanosecond.
March 7, 2022
They won’t change the green agenda because the government has agreed to the world agendas decided in Davos by Herr Schwab, his one time young leaders now meeting to agree to enforce them , to limit finance to green projects and deny it to carbon fuels. Banks, finance houses and all the large corporations are on the board. The politicians chosen by globalist Johnson are stooges. Politicians such as JR will be sidelined.
Pensioners such as the man I met in the park, who already stays in a bedroom under a blanket with his dogs to keep warm will not be able to own his house, he will have to sell to the banks, own nothing and be happy in a council flat with a heat pump. That’s the agenda.
March 7, 2022
Davos is anti democratic and any UK politician or civil servant attending should be labelled as a traitor to the people
March 7, 2022
Lord it is depressing.
March 7, 2022
Stop buying Russian gas & oil. Let’s get back to FRACKING
March 7, 2022
Unfortunately the West cannot afford to stop buying Russian gas and oil in a hurry, as Herr Scholz has admitted today. We have no means of alternative supply, and for Europe the loss would be catastrophic – even causus belli if the Russians cut supply themselves. While Russia is unable to spend the € and $ it earns from hydrocarbon sales because of sanctions, the money does nothing to finance the Russian war effort. It piles up uselessly in Russian bank accounts, and builds a bribe towards more friendly policies from some future Russian regime. Its value will likely be eroded by inflation anyway.
On the other hand, Biden’s rush to agree that Iran can rejoin the normal international oil market, rather than being constrained to sales to China, almost certainly accompanied by unfreezing of assets etc. on top of ending strict nuclear sanctions will only serve to encourage the Iranians to spend on nuclear and conventional arms.
Our best defence is to promote oil and gas projects in friendly countries around the world so that we are not beholden to unfriendly ones to keep the lights on, and to being prepared to use more coal and build more nuclear to reduce gas reliance. Wind farms and solar do little to help, because they need highly flexible gas generation to be able to be fitted in to grid supply.
March 7, 2022
It really is that simple, and Boris could authorise it tomorrow
March 8, 2022
It seems that Russia also needs more gas , but they are going a roundabout way to get to the Crimea when the strip of water between Russia and the republic of Crimea is of little distance.What has been going on between 2014 and now?
March 7, 2022
I see Johnson is doubling down on green energy and nuclear power to cover our needs. How many years does he expect us to wait for some electricity ? He’s become down right dangerous.
March 7, 2022
To see this thing from Canada on a platform with Johnson turns my stomach. Two Davos acolytes scratching each other’s backs.
Schwab and his snivelling progeny are systematically destroying the West and all that we are
Always remember that it is the TRUCKERS WHO BRING OUR DAILY BREAD TO YOUR KITCHEN TABLE each morning. Trudeau brings nothing but misery, barbarity and demonisation of the innocent
March 8, 2022
It is the minority of deluded conspiracy theorist truckers who are obstructing the deliveries.
In view of what Farage, Trump and Banks’ pal Putin is doing in Ukraine your comment is well, as unhinged as we’ve come to expect.
March 8, 2022
You lefties now hate the workers
Hilarious.
March 7, 2022
I furnished my own M.P. with a copy of today’s diary, not least to undermine the view given to me previously that Mr. Kwarteng is doing some good.
March 7, 2022
O/T but somewhat related:
isc.independent.gov.uk ‘Russia’, HC 632, 55 p.
gov.uk ‘Government Response to the Intelligence and Security Committee Russia Report’, 21/07/2020.
hansard.parliament.uk 22/07/2020 debate on the ISC Russia report.
gov.uk ‘Russia and the UK’ with links to the various initiatives recently taken in the UK regarding the situation in Ukraine (NB: sort by ‘updated (newest)’, otherwise ‘most viewed’ documents come first).
March 7, 2022
Usually April is a month that heralds spring, lighter evenings, warmer days, a mental lift in spirits.
Not this year. It will be another gloomy vision of the future. Dystopia getting ever closer.
We’ve had a pandemic, an alarming fall in economy only added to by EU response to our leaving them.
Green soothsayers agitating for removal of the energy sources that made the world great.
Now we have a new war fueled and directed by a madman who likely will never face a war crimes tribunal, but should. The disaster of violent, shambolic leaders of countries everywhere you look.
March 8, 2022
Sir John,
A more important question for the Business Secretary (and each of their predecessors) would be “Why the hell haven’t we been doing that for the past 30 years?!”.
Now, I do know from my associations with the offshore drilling sector that we sell our high quality Brent Crude for a higher price overseas, that enables us to buy-in lesser quality (and thence cheaper fuel) which still fulfills our needs, thereby producing profit for UK PLC.
In the light of the current situation with Russia & The Ukraine (and any consequent strife in the Middle East) it is high time that practice was ended. We have enough reserves to meet our needs for at least the next two decades to come. And there are a lot of out-of-work exploration Geologists, Rousties and Roughnecks etc who could do with the income post-covid. Those inevitable new discoveries will add to those reserves, helping to secure our energy independence in the future. High oil prices should encourage more exploration.
The Greenwashing Agenda is dying and hopefully will soon be dead. The UK produces less than 1% of global anthropogenic CO2. Cutting our output by 25% (i.e. to 0.75% of global emissions) is a f*rt in a F8 Gale. Extinction Re-bellends perhaps ought to consider that CO2 is plant food, and the grow better when they are fed! We are also going to need more food crops, so there’s a win-win there.
The country needs to get back on its feet. Let’s start, in earnest, with our own energy security (and in so doing relieve the burden on the our domestic consumers).
Thinking back to your earlier questions to the energy minister, I seem to recall that his answer was that in the period 2022~2030, we have provision for an extra generating capacity of only 31 GigaWatts of electricity, but projected domestic consumption will rise from 101 to 116 TERA Watts (15 TW divided by 31 GW; 15,000/31 = a need that outstrips supply by almost 484x. Would you please ask the Energy Minister where he intends to find the additional (missing) supply?
(In view of Justin Trudeau’s visit to these shores, a dour matter-of-fact delivery of that question – in the style of Canadian MP Pierre Poilievre, asking their Finance Minister where the extra CDN $7 billion of spending was coming from – would be interesting to watch in the House ;o)
Thank you.
G.W.
March 8, 2022
I don’t think any Political party in this Country is now capable of improving the conditions of it’s citizens. There are a few practical
MP’s but the rest are motivated by ideals and slogans to make themselves look good and get re-elected before the cost and impact of the ideal is felt by the tax payer. We are lucky if it is just money but more often it is lives and suffering.
There would not be a shortage of Gas if the US and EU had not overthrown the Government of Ukraine in 2014, just to get at Russia.
March 8, 2022
Keep banging the drum 🥁.. we are currently going through the eye of the needle .. energy supply policy has to change to uk 🇬🇧 supply for all out needs both transition carbon and renewable resources. We need cornish lithium and rare earth metals from friendly countries like Oz.
Keep the pressure on Sir John, perseverance is the way. Thank you.
March 8, 2022
To clarify. We also need cornish lithium and rare earth metals from friendly countries like Oz, for the battery tech.
March 8, 2022
In particular Sir John –
Just who is Kwasi Kwarteng working for?
I understand it is HIM that is DETERMINED to PERMANENTLY prevent our country from FRACKING for our own oil and gas.
You may not believe in Global Conspiracy theories but it looks very suspicious to me.
This needs URGENT ACTION TO STOP IT HAPPENING.
March 8, 2022
There is nothing wrong with The Nation State.
There is nothing wrong with supporting and working for, the Nation State. It used to be called PATRIOTIC to do so.
Now of course the liberal lefties, call it Nationalism, Fascism, Far Right and other bad names.
Government of Nation States, by Elected Representatives, is vastly superior to, government from Supranational, Unelected Global powers.
March 8, 2022
North Korea is a nation state. Saudi Arabia is too.
The US is a federation of fifty states.
The UK is a union of four nations.
March 9, 2022
Pauline said “government of nation state by elected representatives”
So your two examples don’t work.
You dont read other people’s posts before you jump in do you eh NHL?
PS
And both the UK and USA are regarded as nation states.
March 8, 2022
We import more than half of the gas we currently use…it seems unlikely that it is desirable to replace all of this with domestic production, particularly since more than half of our imports are by pipeline from Norway which is a very reliable partner.
We should certainly replace Russian LNG (c2% of our total gas) with other LNG, and any piped gas that originates in Russia (at most 1.5% of our total gas). But why should we replace other LNG? What we need is to negotiate firm supply agreements with the US and Qatar, and to limit LNG re-loads to ensure those cargoes are not bid away if prices rise in Asia. We also need to expand our seasonal gas storage capability (but keeping in mind that this has high capital costs and that even Rough only contained a few days’ worth of winter requirements).
And we need to note that security of supply in electricity is far worse than for gas. We can buy all the gas we need if we’re willing to bid it away from Asia, but we have a real risk of running out of electricity in winter, when it isn’t windy. Self-harming strategies such as early coal closures and only considering EPRs for new nuclear are going to land us in serious trouble possibly as soon as next winter – the T-1 capacity acution saw a shortfall for the first time. This is very worrying…